Where does the time go? It seems like summer had only just begun and now Labor day is upon us! The kids are back in school, the leaves will begin to turn, soon we’ll be breaking out the sweaters and before you know it we’ll be in full swing with the holidays! I can’t believe it. I for one do enjoy autumn/fall, the temperature is right, there’s football, Halloween (my favorite!) and Thanksgiving. Well, there’s no stopping it so you might as well make the best of it.

I’m sure many of you out there on a traveling nurse or allied assignment would love to be home for the holidays. Unfortunately not all of you will be able to. Remember, you are out there to relieve hospitals of their staffing woes and may have to cover for some while they take their holiday break. But f you are one of the lucky ones and have your time between assignments spaced out correctly, I have a tip for you. This morning I happened upon this site called airfarewatchdog.com. This site allows you to pick up to 5 destinations from your base airport and will send you daily or weekly updates as to airfare sales. Now I haven’t used it yet and don’t think I’ll get to this year (I only have 3 days left of vacation to use, which includes -cough- sick days). It seems like a pretty good site and lists most major airliines, including the elusive Southwest.

Of course, there are the other sites out there like Orbitz, or Priceline.com, but Airfarewatchdog.com seems to go that extra mile. It’s not a search engine like those other places. With this site, they actually do the research and give you the skinny, whether it is non-stop, how many seats are available and other important factors which are all sought out “by hand”. Also, many of the prices are unadvertised and short-lived, so you may want to get on it while the getting is good.

This may seem a bit pre-emptive, but like I said, summer is just about over and it’s time to look forward to the fall. I hope you can find the time away from your traveling assignment and get to visit friends and family.